Adobe Flash, I HATE you.

One of the more frustrating things with vSphere these days is dealing with this flash client. As a consultant, I am continually working with different machines and have to set them up over and over again to get proper vSphere management going.

Since vSphere 6.5 has now officially killed the Fat Client, I have been working more and more with this damn Flash Client. Basically, every time I go to load it up on a machine, I am presented with the message below:

Click on the handy link and get sent over to Adobe to be told that flash is already built into the OS/Browser you are running. Super annoying. There’s a whole slew of steps you have to remember to try to follow Adobe’s instructions on how to enable it and eventually you just give up. (Because it won’t work!)

Here’s the real scoop :

Basically, if you are trying to access the Web Client via a server, you need to add the Desktop Experience feature to it. NOTE: This will most likely require a restart – Thanks Microsoft!

Depending on the version of Windows you are running, Desktop Experience might be hiding in a few different places.

or

Hunt around for it and then enable it.

If you want to go the nice and easy PowerShell route, you can use the following command,

Install-WindowsFeature Desktop-Experience

As a side note, I’m thrilled that Adobe is killing off Flash but it will still be with us for a few more years (same with the vSphere 5.5 and 6.0 installations of the world), so might as well have a way to enable it.